Pak. J. Bot., 39(7): 2285-2290, 2007.

ETHNOBOTANICAL STUDIES OF PLANTS OF MIANWALI

DISTRICT PUNJAB, PAKISTAN
RIZWANA ALEEM QURESHI, SYED ANEEL GILANI*
AND M. ASAD GHUFRAN
Department of Plant Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan
*Pakistan Museum of Natural History Shakarparian, Islamabad, Pakistan
Abstract
Medicinally important plants are necessary for the production of the various drugs and curing
diseases. The local people use 26 species of the vascular plants of the Mianwali district for
medicine, furniture and agricultural implements and as the food. The local community is extremely
knowledgeable about the local plants but unfortunately this knowledge is going to be lost as
traditional culture is disappearing.
The information obtained while studying the flora of Mianwali District, Punjab is presented
here. For each plant its botanical name, family name, vernacular names and method of using this
plant is given. Total of 21 species belonging to 16 families were recorded for the medicinal use and
five species utilized for agricultural implements and for other purposes.

Introduction
Mianwali is situated in the south-western part of the Punjab province. It represents
the plains of the western part of the salt-ranges near the Sakesar hill (Iftikhar, 1964). It
has boundaries with Bhakkar, Khushab, D.I Khan and Bannu districts. It is included in
the Sargodha Division. Its population is more than one million. About 79.22% people
live in the rural area while 20.78% of people live in the urban areas (Census, 1998).
Literacy rate of the city is as low as 25%.
Average maximum temperature per annum is 47C and minimum temperature is
19C. Mean annual rain fall of the Mianwali is 3.3mm and maximum rain fall occurs in
the month of July i.e., 6.6cm (Anony., 2000; Iftikhar, 1964). There are three types of soil
sandy, clay and loamy in this district. Important crops of the area are wheat, barely, oat,
mustard, Eruca, fennel, pea nut, mung, mash, etc. Due to ruthless cutting of forest for fuel
and timber purposes, the forest covered area is very low. Mostly the area is semi-Arid
very small area is irrigated and source of the irrigation is the canals of river Indus. In the
human civilisation plants have played a vital role. The use of plants for medicinal
purposes is as old as human civilisation (Hill, 1952). From the Ethnobotanical point of
view the sub-continent is considered an extremely important area (Paliwal & Badoni,
1988). According to an estimate in Pakistan up to 84% people depend upon traditional
medicine for almost all kinds of medicine need (Hocking, 1958). All the systems of
traditional medicine have their roots in the house remedies and this knowledge is
transferred from one generation to other generation with the passage of time (Shinwari,
1996). It is the fact that all the indigenous herbal or eastern system of medicine is entirely
based on the properties of these plants. The importance of the herbal medicine can be
well understood by the saying of Hippocrates Let medicine be your food and food your
medicine (Bartran, 1995).

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Materials and Methods

The area of our studies was Mianwali district. For the collection of the plant
specimen field trips were frequently undertaken. Ethnobotanical informations were
gathered by investigation and interviewing the local people. The plant specimens
collected for this purpose were identified and deposited in the herbarium, Quaid-i-Azam
University, Islamabad (ISL), Pakistan.
Results and Discussion
During the present investigation based on economically important floristic diversity
of Mianwali area, a total of 23 species belonging to 16 families were collected and
interviews were conducted for their local uses especially in medicines and other
economical purposes e.g., furniture and timber uses. The data collected for various uses
of theses species is presented in Tables 1 and 2.
It has been found that traditional and homeopathic medicines are cheaper and often
more accepted by large number of the people (Chaudhuri & Tribedi, 1976). In Pakistan
main source of medicinal plants is forest and rangeland. There are 50,000 registered
hakims in Pakistan (William & Zahoor, 1999). Mianwali has produced several hakims
(local healers) famous not only locally but also the people from other parts of the country
visit them. Many of them do not charge any thing for their service and treat the people
free of cost.
References
Anonymous. 2000. Agricultural Statistics of Pakistan. 1998-1999. Government of Pakistan
Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Livestock. Economic wing Islamabad.
Bartam, T. 1995. Encyclopedia of Herbal medicine. Grace: Dorset.
Chaudhuri, H.N. and G.N. Tribedi. 1976. On the occurrence of the same medicinal plants in 24
Parganas, West Bengal. Bull. Bot. Surv. Ind., 18(1-2): 161-165.
Hill, A.F. 1952. Economic Botany. McGraw-Hill Book Company, INC. Tokyo.
Hocking, G.M. 1958. Pakistan medicinal plants 1. Qual. Plant. Mat. Veg., 6: 121-136.
Iftikhar, A. 1964. Vegetation of the salt Range. Pakistan Journal of Forestry, 14(1): 36-64.
Shinwari, Z.K. 1996. Ethnobotany in Pakistan: Sustainable and Participatory Approach. Proc. Ist.
Training workshop on Ethnobotany and its Application to Conversation. PASTIC, QAU,
Islamabad.
William and A. Zahoor. 1999. Priorities for Medicinal Plants Research and Development in
Pakistan. MPPA, New Dehli, India.
(Received for publication 14 February 2006)